It's no secret that many Georgians have strong opinions about standardized achievement testing in public schools. In fact, nationwide the topic is vigorously debated. This is due in large part to the use of assessment results for high-stakes decisions, such as student promotion or as a component of school evaluation under No Child Left Behind.

In recent days, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has published some rather sensational reports about Georgia's assessment program. One headline described testing as a "fiasco." Another asks whether the tests failed the students. Incredibly, readers have been asked to assume that state officials were working on a silent conspiracy to fail thousands of students. Such articles will certainly provoke a reaction. Standardized tests are an easy target, and inciting anger about them is hardly sporting.

But a more accurate treatment would be far less dramatic.

Such a piece would mention that Georgia follows a very careful, established process for building and validating assessments. This process takes about two years and includes many crucial steps before students ever apply their pencils to a bubble sheet.

Items are reviewed multiple times by curriculum experts and classroom educators. A team of testing experts —- or psychometricians —- ensures the forms are assembled to specifications and that tests are scored and scaled accurately.

Expert panels, which include teachers and education leaders from around the state, follow a research-based process to set fair performance standards that correspond to the curriculum. Finally, Georgia's assessment program is regularly reviewed and endorsed by independent experts.

Behind the curtain, a team of professionals works hard all year to build and implement an assessment system for Georgia's students that is second to none.

Even so, officials at the department made the tough decision last week to nullify results from two of the 36 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT). A complicated intersection of issues led to this decision, but the bottom line is that the department openly acknowledged concerns and took the path of abundant caution. By so doing, state School Superintendent Kathy Cox showed that she continues to work in the best interest of students and teachers in Georgia.

Debate continues, however, about the rigor of the standards, especially in eighth-grade mathematics.

Now, the same publication that routinely vilifies the Georgia Department of Education for soft standards is newly indignant about tougher tests. This kind of schizophrenic coverage provides evidence that the AJC is more interested in being provocative than informative.

Lost in this tumult is an understanding of why assessments are an essential part of the educational system. If we believe that educating the children of Georgia is an important enterprise, we should also believe that having a standard measure of student achievement is necessary.

Although test scores are often connected to a great deal of policy, politics and posturing, tests are —- at their core —- a source of information. Such information can be used to help diagnose student performance, inform instruction and promote success.

That's what it is all about.

Over the past few years, the department has implemented a new and improved curriculum for Georgia students. I have two children in public schools, and I have seen firsthand that they are receiving superior instruction on challenging standards and are growing to new levels I believe were previously unknown in Georgia schools. And, yes, they take the CRCT and other standardized tests, and I am very comfortable they are being assessed fairly and accurately.

I exhort readers to go beyond the headlines and look dispassionately at what are largely positive indicators. In areas where the new curriculum has been implemented for more than one year, the needle is moving in the right direction. In seventh-grade mathematics, for example, a new, rigorous curriculum was implemented last year, with a pass rate on the CRCT of about 74 percent. This year, preliminary figures indicate that approximately 80 percent of students will pass. This type of increase is not isolated; it is visible across the board in areas where the new curriculum is in place.

Sure, standardized testing will always be the subject of debate. It should be. Tests are not flawless, and a series of multiple-choice questions could never stand alone to provide a complete picture of student achievement. I argue, however, that they are an important and necessary part of what should be a more objective, thoughtful analysis of the state of education.

Although it may not make for sensational headlines, such an analysis will show that the news is good.

> Christopher Domaleski is associate superintendent for assessment and accountability at the Georgia Department of Education. He lives in Rockdale County.

CRCT BY THE NUMBERS

Here are pass rates for the state's Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests. In classes in which the state's new curriculum —- the Georgia Performance Standards —- was in place for more than one year, CRCT scores appear to be improving across the board. Those results, listed below, cover 25 of the 36 CRCT tests administered in 2008. In most other cases (these are noted with an asterisk) the class was in only its first year of the new curriculum.

State officials emphasize that official scores for 2008 are expected in early June and that the results below are projections by the state's testing contractor. Final results may differ from the projections.

English language arts

Grade....2007....2008

1........82.4....84.5

2........83.8....84.1

3........85.7....87.1

4........84.3....86.2

5........87.7....90.0

6........86.3....87.4

7........89.1....89.7

8........88.3....89.4

Mathematics

Grade....2007....2008

1........82.4....86.4

2........81.3....85.5

3........90......70.9*

4........78......70.1*

5........88......71.6*

6........64.6....69.3

7........73.9....79.8

8........81......62.2*

Reading

Grade....2007....2008

1........90.1....90.3

2........91.3....92.0

3........85.0....87.5

4........84.8....87.5

5........85.5....87.2

6........89.3....91.4

7........84.9....88.0

8........88.5....90.6

Science

(tested in grades 3-8)

Grade....2007....2008

3........70.1....74.6

4........71.9....73.8

5........66.7....71.3

6........59.5....66.0

7........70.0....75.1

8........74......59.7*

Social studies

Grade....2007....2008

6........83......28.5**

7........86......24.3**

8........85......58.9*

* new curriculum in place for one year only. The 2008 test was based on a curriculum substantially different from the curriculum on which the 2007 test was based; the state argues that these results are, therefore, not comparable.

** test results invalidated by the state.

Note: Grades 3-5 did not begin using the new social studies curriculum in 2008. All three classes took the test based on the "old" curriculum, and scores went up in all three cases.

Source: Georgia Department of Education